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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

SoWhat greenway will be another no-bid deal

And your Tri-Met payroll tax dollars will be going to turn the toxic banks into a lovely beach:

Project partner TriMet is providing $1 million for the habitat improvements, which will give it environmental mitigation credits needed to proceed with the Portland-to-Milwaukie light-rail project, Argentina said. She plans to ask City Council to forgo its low-bid process for the project and instead issue a request for proposals. A selection committee would then select a CM/GC based on a thorough evaluation of those proposals.

Wait 'til they start digging:

"The riverbank is all industrial fill," said Andrew Holder, landscape designer with Walker Macy. "Engineers have found whole dump trucks down there with the concrete still in them. Once they start digging, I am counting on some challenges to come up."

Like everything else connected with the city's vibrant, exciting, new neighborhood, this one promises a lot of hidden expense, looting of tax money from many quarters, and a disappointing outcome. Go by streetcar!

Comments (13)

Why does TriMet need "environmental mitigation credits" at all - isn't the whole point of Trimet to mitigate environmental impacts by providing bus and rail service as an alternative to single-occupant vehicle use?

This is another example of how TriMet is bleeding existing bus service dry. Never any money to replace worn out buses, but plenty of money for little frilly projects like this and installing lights on the ODOT owned, operated and maintained I-205 bike path (but TriMet paid for it). I don't see the City, Counties, ODOT or Metro paying for new buses...

I don't recall TriMet being a development agency, a waterways restoration agency, a parks and rec district, the DEQ, the Soil & Water Conservation District...or any other number of agencies that should be worried about the damn river. TriMet needs to be worried about providing transit - THAT'S IT! And it is having a hard enough time providing its base level service...

But, I guess there's jobs to be had in dumping sand in a river... It's all for the fish...and I'm sure it's all for the children, too.

Stop TIF now! More scams at tax payer expense.
And yes there probably are entire dump trucks down there.
Alaska junk and Zeidell were there for decades!
Who knows what will turn up? It is a veritable archeological dig.

Like I have mentioned before, we really need to take a serious look not only underground, but behind the scenes as well. Just because something looks "pretty or glitzy" above or above board, does not mean much. Toxins and toxic procedures and decisions need to stop.

A sick society and culture that allows this can no longer be "business as usual." It is in my view becoming more apparent that systems are broken. Hopefully this New Year will bring out more truth and exposure to wrongdoings that hurt our community.

Lucky Lake Oswego - where the next iteration of the SoWa district is planned. The land there has been industrial for decades - I wonder what pollution problems exist there now. Building within a protected floodplain in a area that is laced with industrial infrastructure -- I wonder if Trimet will be helping out on the development costs there too?

Before SoWhat even broke ground, the CTLH (Corbett, Terwilliger, Lair Hill) neighborhood association was working on filing an environmental claim. I don't recall if it was an actual superfund application, but it was an attempt to stop the project from moving ahead based on what was known about the fill.

Wow. Corporate welfare on so many fronts. Taxpayers get to pay for cleaning up a mess made by businesses (don't read your water bill too carefully because you are paying to clean up river pollution done by business) and then the sweetheart deal of this contract. Too bad business doesn't like to make money the old fashioned way by actually earning it and not making others subsidize them.

I'm amazed that in such a green town, they'd even consider disturbing that earth. Study after study concludes that the best way to deal with contaminated but stable riverbanks is to leave them alone. There could be anything down there including rotten drums of napalm, pcbs, solvents, dioxin, exotic marine oils and fuels, lead paints, etc. Will those idiots even know what they've found? Do we want that stuff removed from its relatively stable matrix and let loose on Earth? These people are brain dead. It's strange that OHSU wouldn't care more about the potential hazards from poking around in this time capsule. It's unlikely, but still a remote possibility, that they could cause horrible health problems for people in the surrounding area, perhaps even rendering the whole place unfit for having a hospital, and for what? A misguided attempt at restoring fish habitat, when the MAX train construction in the Johnson Creek watershed will have 100x more impact? Nuts. Maybe they'll have the pleasure of having a child born without a skull, and they'll rethink the wisdom of their decisions. Unbelievable!

Road Work

Miles run year to date: 155
At this date last year: 241
Total run in 2015: 271
In 2014: 401
In 2013: 257
In 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269